The present invention generally relates to recording and reproducing apparatus and, more particularly, to apparatus that is adapted to record and reproduce television signals, using digital techniques.
The continued advances in technology have resulted in many changes in the equipment that is currently being used in television broadcast stations. One of the more recent changes that has evolved is the shift away from photographic techniques toward the use of magnetic media in many phases of the operation of the commercial broadcast television station. For example, feature films being broadcast often originate from magnetic tape rather than film and television station news departments are increasingly converting to videotape recording systems rather than using film cameras to provide the visual coverage of the news stories. Moreover, many systems utilize travelling transmitters that can either broadcast on location coverage or transmit such coverage to the station which can either be broadcast "live" or videotaped, edited and broadcast at a later time. Some of the many benefits of these techniques are the ease of handling, flexibility and speed of processing compared to the use of photographic film, coupled with the ability to reuse the magnetic tape when the information that is recorded on them is no longer needed.
One of the last remaining film domains in the present day commercial television broadcasting station is the Telecine island which uses 35 millimeter film transparencies. The Telecine island is used to provide video still images that are used during programming, commercials, news and the like, i.e., wherever a still image may be used during operation. Their use is extensive as is evidenced by the fact that the average commercial broadcast television station maintains a total file on the order of about 2000 to 5000 35 millimeter transparency slides. The maintenance of the total file represents a laborious operation which requires introduction of new slides, the discarding of obsolete slides and the maintenance of an accurate index so that they can be readily obtained when needed. When slide program sequences are to be assembled, they must be manually carried to the Telecine island, cleaned and manually loaded. Even with the cleaning operation, dust particles and scratches and the like may easily result in an unsatisfactory end product even when the projectionist is careful. Morever, following their use during broadcasting, the slides must be removed and returned to the file. The entire assembling, use and refiling of the slides represent a substantial labor investment because of the many manual operations that are required. The Telecine operation is considered to be one of the most antiquated operations in many modern broadcast stations and is basically incompatible with a fully automated station operation.
In contrast to the Telecine island or the use of opaque graphic material as the source for generating video still images, the present invention described herein facilitates the use of a recording and playback apparatus that will record and reproduce still images, with the still image video information being stored on magnetic media. The magnetic recording and playback apparatus utilizes generally standard computer disc drives (though modified in some respects) as the magnetic storage media and thereby eliminates the many problems that are associated with slide transparencies. Since the still images are recorded on magnetic media, the problems of physical degradation during use, e.g., dust particles and scratches, are not experienced. Morever, since the recorded information can be easily accessed, the same still image may be used by operators at different locations almost simultaneously.
As will be described herein, the recording and reproducing apparatus described herein processes a composite video information signal for recording on disc packs of computer disc drives and, during the processing, removes the horizontal synchronization pulses from the signal, thereafter samples the analog video information signal and converts the samples to a number of digital data streams. The present invention is directed to apparatus for inserting a unique digital synchronizing word, preferably on alternate television lines, generally in the location of the previously removed horizontal synchronization pulse. The synchronization word is used as a reference for correcting for time base and skewing errors that can occur among the plurality of bits of data in the data streams that must be combined to derive the value of each sample. Since the synchronization word is a multibit word that is inserted in the data stream, it should be apparent that the bits defining the synchronization word may occasionally randomly occur during the active portion of the television line and, for this reason, the horizontal blanking interval is made to be devoid of information content in the data streams, except for the presence of the unique synchronization word. By doing so, the circuitry in the reproducing portion of the signal can reliably and accurately detect the synchronization word which is used as the timing reference. The apparatus of the present invention also removes all information content of the data streams during the approximately first half of the vertical blanking interval so that only the synchronization word occurs on alternate lines through about the first 10 to 12 lines of the vertical blanking interval. This provides sufficient time for the detecting circuitry to lock onto the synchronization word, in the event that the circuitry becomes disoriented for some reason. The apparatus of the present invention inserts the synchronization word in the proper location during alternate lines in the horizontal blanking interval without stopping the data streams that are generally continuously moving. However, no active video information is lost, since the synchronization word is inserted during the horizontal blanking interval.